BUSI5B415: Small Business

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• To provide students with the opportunity to study some key issues in small business management at an advanced level.

• The characteristics of small businesses, their stakeholders and their relationships with other businesses
• The contribution of small business to employment, innovation and competition
• The reasons why small firms vary in importance across sectors and the management implications of that variation
• Different approaches to entrepreneurial activity and its contribution to small business development
• The formation decision and its determinants
• Factors influencing growth and success
• Survival rates of new businesses
• The financial characteristics of small businesses and the existence of financial 'gaps'
• The rationale for policy intervention and some recent experience
• Specific readings will be set with each lecture and seminar.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• By the end of the module, students should have a critical knowledge and understanding of:
• The nature of small business and its stakeholders
• The contribution of small businesses to the economy and different sectors
• The role of the entrepreneur and entrepreneurship in small business
• The factors influencing the creation of small business
• The growth, success and survival of small business
• The financing of small businesses
• The policy environment.

Subject-specific Skills:

Key Skills:

• The key concepts, theories and navigational assistance for the literature will be prepared in a series of lectures, each with a question and answer session. These will be supported by lectures, guided reading and seminars.
• The seminars will be run in small groups and commence with prepared written papers and presentations resulting from background reading and case study analysis from groups of 2 or 3 students. Formative assessment through feedback will be provided at these seminars.
• External small business practitioners will be invited to present their perspectives on small business issues, to give students a greater sense of the complexity and pragmatics of everyday practice of working in or with small businesses.
• The summative assignment will require the student to assess the strategic or competitive position of a specific small business, either through case material or preferably a local small business. This assignment will necessarily require reference to most of the syllabus content in order to assess the practical situation and identify management imperatives.

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